A residual haunting, or the more recent term of place memory, is a paranormal hypothesis in which the environment (being a location or object) can record highly emotional (both good and bad) events. The activity is imprinted on the environment much like an image or sound is recorded on a video or audiotape. Those events with higher emotional content seem to be recorded and perceived better. Then, under the right environmental conditions (magnetic fields, electrical charge, weather, or who knows what) and with the right person, the recorded event is re-played and perceived. You can simply think of it as a looped video playing over and over again.

The identifying characteristics are:

The phenomenon is independent of the people in the location. There is no interaction at all between the ghost and the living.

Apparitions witnessed in a residual haunting are different than the true “dead guy” apparitions (see the next section). The apparitions in a residual haunting are more appropriately referred to as pseudo-apparitions or apparition-like phenomena.

One person, a few people, or all people in a group may experience the phenomena.

There is little acceptance of the residual haunting phenomena outside of the paranormal and ghost hunting community. The lack of solid repeatable data in mainstream science seems to be the problematic issue.

The main challenges to the hypothesis are:

1) Can human emotions affect the environment?

2) What is it in the environment that actually serves as the recording medium?

This study shows that a patient’s emotions in a biopsychiatric therapy setting can affect the output of a Random Event Generator (REG). Therefore, it seems as if human emotions can affect the environment.

This study shows that intentional healing and space conditioning affected the output of a Random Number Generator (RNG) and the effect was still seen when there was not active intentional healing and space conditioning being conducted in the environment. Evidence of a residual effect!

Persinger, M.A. and Dotta, B.T. (2011). Temporal Patterns of Photon Emissions Can Be Stored and Retrieved Several Days Later From the “Same Space”: Experimental and Quantitative Evidence. NeuroQuantology. Vol. 9(4). 605-613. Article

This study shows that photon emissions from a hydrogen peroxide-hypochlorite reaction can be entangled in time and space and can be ‘stored’ and retrieved long after the event took place when in the presence of complex magnetic fields (and no they can’t be detected with a KII Meter). This shows that ‘events’ could be stored just within space itself under complex magnetic fields and there doesn’t need to be a substrate such as quartz, house structures, furniture, etc. Pages 610 to 612 are especially worthwhile reading!